A new art piece graces the remodeled space that was once the OSU bookstore. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

When light shimmers through the hand painted, airbrushed and etched glass artwork, “Elemental Endowment,” in the east wing of the Memorial Union, it takes viewers on a colorful journey. For glass and watercolor artist Alex Hirsch of Portland, she hopes those who see the piece will be transported both in their minds and hearts.

“I like my work to take people somewhere beyond what you’re seeing, and deeper into themsleves” she said.

Hirsch’s work was selected and purchased for Oregon State University through Oregon’s “Percent for Art” program, facilitated by the Oregon Arts Commission. The program requires that at least 1 percent of the direct construction funds of a new or remodeled state building with construction budget of $100,000 or more be set aside for the acquisition of art for the building.

While Hirsch has lived in Portland since 1995, her first trip to Corvallis was after she was invited to submit a proposal to a jury for the MU project. She observed the landscape, talked to students and gained a better appreciation for Oregon State University’s role in Oregon, as well as getting an idea of the space where her piece would be displayed.

Portland artist Alex Hirsch has created a glass art installation for the Memorial Union’s east wing.

As one of three finalists for the project, she designed a piece that spoke to OSU’s unique spot as one of only two public universities in the country that has the status as land, sea, space and sun grant. Her work was selected by a committee that included OSU students, as being the best representation of OSU’s mission. The final work is based on a watercolor and translated into glass enamels on glass that is tempered and laminated.

Hirsch’s work has appeared in a number of public buildings, including at Oregon Health & Sciences University, Southern Oregon University and MODA Health in Bend. She enjoys the challenges of a public art piece, which reaches a broader audience and can add broader benefits. She equally values the work she does for galleries and individuals, which pushes different boundaries and allows for more personal expression.

“They each feed each other and have their benefits and limitations,” she said of public versus private work. “When I developed my concept for OSU’s Memorial Union, I worked through multiple ideas before arriving on this conceptual and aesthetic direction.”

Hirsch said she was thrilled to work with a number of partners on the project, from the architects at OPSIS who are redesigning the east wing of the MU, to her fabricators Peters Glass in Germany, Andersen Construction, Culver Glass installers and Saralynn Hilde of the Oregon Arts Commission. Hilde is retiring and this is one of the last Percent for Art projects she’ll be overseeing.

Each panel depicts a different intepretation of the land, sea, space and sun grant.

Hilde said this project brought extra challenges because the glass panels are inserted in a wall separating two distinct rooms, a lounge and event space, which meant that sound barriers had to be created, since the panels acoustically compromised the walls. Finally, after much research the team determined to utilize a sound-reducing laminate between sheets of glass.

Another challenge, Hirsch said, was making a piece that read right to left in one room, and left to right in the other, as well as making the piece translucent without allowing viewers to see into the adjoining space.

She combined abstracted landscape imagery with abstract patterns, playing with color and texture to create a dreamy world of water and light. Each panel hints at the elements of a land, space, sea and sun grant, without being literal interpretations of those ideas.

“It’s not academic, it’s evocative,” she said.

To view “Elemental Endowment,” visit the new student lounge on the southeast side of the Memorial Union. For more about Alex Hirsch, http://alexhirschart.com/

It may be a bit difficult to access the Memorial Union from the east end these days, but big changes are ahead for the student union over the next year, including a new restaurant, new gathering spaces and some new tenants.

Kent Sumner, MU assistant director of marketing, and Robyn Jones, assistant director for MU Retail Food Services, are excited about plans to open a new food concept in space formerly occupied by the OSU Beaver Store, which has now relocated near Gill Coliseum. Called North Porch Café, the restaurant will feature Southeast Asian fast food, including Banh Mi (Vietnamese sandwiches), curry bowls, noodles, and many vegetarian, vegan and gluten free options. While there will be some tables, the restaurant is more takeout-oriented, but a new student lounge to the south of the space will offer plenty of opportunity for seating.

The restaurant will open in early June, and will be a 12-month operation, unlike some other MU food spaces that close during the summer. A large grand opening celebration will be scheduled for the fall.

North Porch Cafe

“It gives a different taste on campus, and the revenues from the business will go to support student projects, and help keep student fees low,” Sumner said. “It’s a revenue generator for students.”

The restaurant and lounge will flank a large central event space, giving students, staff and faculty another meeting room/event option for conferences and other activities. Sumner said it is a nice compliment to the MU ballroom, which can be too large for some events. A glass art piece by Portland artist Alex Hirsch will be installed in the space as part of the “Percent for Art” program. The glass panels represent OSU’s Land, Sea, Sun and Space Grant status.

New ADA accessible bathrooms also will be added into the space.

New art in event/conference space

The level below the restaurant and event space, which formerly housed the book area of the bookstore, will now be divided into the Community and Cultural Kitchen (currently housed in Snell Hall) and a multipurpose room. The kitchen, where students prepare meals for cultural events, will be located on the same floor as the MU ballroom, making it much easier to move food items into the ballroom for cultural nights and other activities. A teaching station will also be created in the kitchen for educational purposes.

The lowest level of the section, which previously housed a U.S. Post Office, will become office space for MU facilities service staff.

Within the main portion of the MU, a number of offices are shifting once the Student Experience Center comes online in 2015. The Office of Student Leadership and Involvement, the Memorial Union Program Council, and Student Events and Activities Center, as well as the Auxiliaries and Activities Business Center, will all be moving out of the MU, opening up offices for more meeting room space, as well as the addition of the Graduate School Success Center on the second floor.

“While a variety of colleges and programs have small areas for graduate students to congregate, there has been no dedicated, collective space for graduate students to gather and collaborate across disciplines and colleges,” said Courtney Everson, graduate program analyst and graduate student liaison. “The GSSC is unique in its purpose and creation.”

The center will provide a communal space for graduate students, and be close to facilities that will help to ensure their academic and social success. It will offer a space for interdisciplinary conversations, house centralized resources and provide a sense of community that previously hasn’t been available to graduate students.

The creation of the center was student driven, and was taken up by the Graduate School last year. Everson said community-building has been emphasized by many graduate students as a way to increase their quality of life and a feeling of inclusivity.

Graduate students working in the center will collaborate with the Graduate School staff and other campus programs to help better integrate international students, underrepresented minorities, and non-traditional grad students, many of whom can feel culturally and socially marginalized.

“We hope for the GSSC to become a pivotal resource for this growing population,” Everson said, “and to become a supporting place for the activities of graduate faculty, staff and diverse campus entities to flourish, in common commitment to graduate student recruitment, retention and success.”

Laura Peters was first introduced to pottery shortly after moving to the West Coast from New York. She found that her “graphic art and illustrative background led her to approach the clay as a surface to be rendered upon”. Laura’s work is mainly handbuilt, using slabs or coils of clay. The most time consuming aspect of each piece is the underglaze brushwork. The highly-detailed scenes are inspired by observations, stories, her academic studies in Anthropology and Zoology, and the animals she works with at the Chintimini Wildlife Rehab Center.

For Jan Roberts-Dominguez, Art has always played an integral role in her professional life as a food writer. She learned early in her career that newspaper editors and cookbook publishers think in terms of design and lay-out when deciding what to publish. “By providing that artistic element along with my words and recipes, it broke me away from the pack of fellow writers. The huge plus, though, is that I love producing art for my stories and books; it makes projects more complete, more satisfying, more mine.”

Nena Bement, a glass and fiber artist shares “My mom thought all art, from paintings to quilts, needed just a touch of chartreuse to perk things up. She considered chartreuse and fuchsia neutrals. I think I inherited her philosophy of color. My dad loved trying things he had no idea how to do. From him I learned my favorite phrase, ”Just try it!”

Victor Guschov has been painting for more than 40 years. Landscapes, seascapes and nature are his subject matter, whether it is watercolor paintings or contemporary copper or aluminum wall pieces. His life experiences become a part of his work, “”It’s hard to imagine trading my life for one with fewer twists and more security. The memories I have-of living in a two-dollar room on Bourbon Street: working at a fast-food dive on Sunset Strip and walking home in the dark to a seedy apartment; crouching under bridges next to wild rivers to stay dry while painting in the rain; watching snow pile up on my palette- all turned into paintings.”

An opportunity to meet the artists and see more of their work will be available on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the 32nd Annual Holiday Marketplace located in the Memorial Union Ballroom.

Healthy meal choices are increasing on campus, and for one Oregon State student, it’s providing her an opportunity to practice skills that will help her land a job when she graduates in December.

Elisabeth Miller has had a busy fall term. She is about to graduate with a degree in Nutrition Food Management and is getting married this Friday. In the mean time, she’s been in charge of designing the menu for Pangea’s new all-you-can-eat vegetarian dishes on Meatless Mondays.

Each Monday, customers who chose the all-you-can-eat option get an entrée with three vegetarian items, and can request more of any or all three for free. And it’s not just a plateful of carrots. Miller said she’s carefully planned each offering to be tasty, nutritious and a bit adventurous.

“I try to include things that are familiar but with a unique twist,” Miller said. “I try to think about things that go well together, so they don’t feel like they’re just eating a plate of vegetables.”

Miller pulls recipes from culinary school menus and reworks them to make them fit the weekly menu, saying she likes the challenge. She tries to make the dishes low in fat and sodium and avoids allergens like peanuts.

“I want to make it tasty but healthy.”

Pangea is a student-run and operated restaurant in the Memorial Union, and MU Retail Food Services Director Robyn Jones explained that everything from ordering produce to serving meals is left in student hands.

“Any of the specials we offer, we have a student developing it, costing it out and producing it,” Jones said.

Jones is a member of the nutrition subcommittee for the OSU Healthy Life Challenge group, and it was there that the idea of an all-you-can-eat vegetable special came to life. She said the success of the special grows each week, mainly by word of mouth and by emails they send out to patrons.

Some of the produce comes directly from the OSU Organic Growers Club, which has provided salad greens, beets, eggplant, leeks and sweet potatoes, allowing the specials to not only be healthy, but also locally grown.

Jones said all of the food retail locations on campus have healthy options, but that customers are not necessarily buying them.

“We don’t eat enough vegetables, and we’re trying to make it easier for people to find those options,” she said.

Nov. 14, the all-you-can-eat special is vegetarian chili served with roasted corn and brown rice, salsa and salad.

Zoran and Stevan Jeknic present a flag of Montenegro to the Memorial Union so that it can hang in the concourse. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

Montenegro is known as the jewel of the Mediterranean. It takes its name – Black Mountain – from the thick, coniferous forests that carpet its mountains, making them appear almost black from a distance. Oregon State University freshman Stevan Jeknic speaks almost rapturously about the country of his parents’ birth, a place he’s visited many times over the years, and where he holds dual citizenship.

Jeknic, a Corvallis native, got to know Montenegro from his summer trips to visit his family. These visits helped solidify his bond with his parents’ homeland, and because his parents were recent immigrants to the United States when he was born, he learned Montenegrin before he could speak English, and he said they instilled in him traditional Montenegrin values.

Stevan Jeknic helps to hang the flag of Montenegro in the MU concourse. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

“The food was always very good,” he said with a grin, “and we place a lot of value on guests, on treating them well.”

Jeknic, who is studying chemical engineering, and his father, Zoran, a senior faculty research assistant in the department of horticulture, have strong ties to OSU, and after seeing the flags of many countries lining the Memorial Union concourse, they decided it was time to see Montenegro’s red flag flying too.

“We wanted our country to be represented here,” Jeknic said.

The flag is bright red with a two-headed eagle at its center. It’s based on a flag that flew over the kingdom of Montenegro in the late 1800s. After Stevan and Zoran officially presented the flag to MU President Craig Bidiman, Stevan gingerly climbed a ladder to hang the flag in the concourse, placing it between the flags of Rwanda and Tanzania.

Its own kingdom for many years, Montenegro became part of Yugoslavia in 1922, but in 1991, a few years before Jeknic was born, the Bosnian and Croatian War broke out. Years of conflict and upheaval followed, by which time both of Jeknic’s parents had relocated to the United States. In 2006, Montenegro regained its independence.

The Jeknics know that many people are unfamiliar with Montenegro’s history, and hope that the flag provides another opportunity for them to share with the OSU community about the many charms of the land of the black mountain. Stevan even sounds like a tour guide when he talks about his second home.

More than 70 students, staff and faculty danced in a Bollywood flashmob during Beaver Fair. (photo: Darryl Lai)

Oregon State University students and staff turned the Memorial Union Quad into the scene of a Bollywood film on Friday afternoon when more than 70 people participated in a flash mob dance in the middle of the quad.

The event, which was staged as a surprise event during the annual Beaver Fair for students in the quad, drew a large crowd as the dancers tossed off their jackets to reveal bright orange shirts as they began to dance to the Bollywood song “Salaam-E-Ishq” from the movie by the same name.

Oregon State student Neha Neelwarne, a Bollywood instructor for Faculty/Staff fitness and a native of Mysore, India, organized and choreographed the dance and helped keep it a secret until Friday.

“Since October is Diversity Awareness Month I wanted to do something to celebrate diversity on campus, but also to encourage individuals to put some effort into learning something new about other experiences,” Neelwarne said. “What better way to achieve these goals than by doing a Bollywood Flash Mob?”

“Many OSU Students, staff, and faculty members with different backgrounds and experiences put in a lot of effort to learn the dance. Students who work at many different cultural centers at OSU also participated. I hope that every individual at OSU and the community will take an interest in learning about diversity after watching the flash mob - visiting the cultural and resource centers is a great first start!”

Neelwarne has spent the last two months training groups of dancers, most of whom had never performed publically before, and some of whom had never even heard of Bollywood until they participated in the event.

Kevin Gatimu, a graduate student in electrical and computer engineering from Kenya, was excited for the opportunity to participate.

“The Bollywood Flash Mob was not only a forum that hosted different facets of diversity, but it was a form of recreation too,” he said.

His brother Brian, a junior in biochemistry, biophysics, also participated.

“I wanted to be a part of this Indian dance because I personally take interest in cultures different from mine. Learning a cultural dance, in my view, is one of the best, fun and engaging ways to immerse yourself into one’s culture,” he said. “I challenge students out there to utilize the cultural centers in OSU in learning more about the diversity that is here in OSU.”

Oregon State University has made honoring and increasing diversity on campus a high priority. In Spring 2010, there were 3,274 Oregon State students who identified as U.S. minorities, an increase of 8.5 percent from the previous year. And international student numbers rose 30.7 percent, to 1,180 students. There are currently six cultural centers on campus which offer a variety of services to students, and which host campus-wide events throughout the year.

~ Theresa Hogue

]]>http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/lifeatosu/2010/oregon-state-students-staff-dance-in-bollywood-flash-mob/feed/0Haitian relief effort underway in MUhttp://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/lifeatosu/2010/haitian-relief-effort-underway-in-mu/
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/lifeatosu/2010/haitian-relief-effort-underway-in-mu/#commentsThu, 14 Jan 2010 23:35:42 +0000http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/lifeatosu/?p=2685For the last few days, many people have been glued to their computer screens and television sets, watching the horrific aftermath of the Haiti earthquake and wondering what they can do to help.

At Oregon State University, students, faculty and staff now have an opportunity to make cash donations through the Memorial Union that will go directly to the aid effort in Port-au-Prince and elsewhere in Haiti. Michael Henthorne, director of the MU, and his staff are using the Memorial Union as a collecting and communication agent for Haitian Quake relief.

“We believe that we are the community center of the University and as such, campus-wide efforts should have visibility and a contribution to the effort from the MU,” Henthorne said. “It is deeply rooted in our past. If you look at the periods of civil rights, the peace movement, support for military during WWII, etc., all of them have a strong connection to the MU.”

Oregon State has a pre-existing partnership with Mercy Corps International, a Portland-based aid group that is sending staff and supplies to Haiti in the wake of the disaster. The student organization ISOSU is acting as the fund dispersing account for cash donations on campus, all of which will go directly to Mercy Corps.

“They have one of the highest gifts-to-aid ratio of any relief agency at 89 percent,” Henthorne said of Mercy Corps. “People on campus are familiar with them and they get frequent media exposure in the state and region because of their out-reach efforts.”

Mercy Corps has also made staff available to travel to campus if needed to provide direction presentations on emergency efforts and answer questions about what they are trying to do.

There is currently a display in the MU concourse that explains Mercy Corps’ mission and has an area to keep track of group, organization and departmental cash contributions. Donations will be collected in the MU Business Office.

The MU has been the focal point of a number of disaster relief efforts, most notably following the tsunamis of 2004.

“We did a similar effort (in 2004),” Henthorne said, “but we were more focused on individual contributions with the Tsunami. This time, we’re also targeting groups, and in particular, encouraging them to conduct activities over the next few months of Winter Term, perhaps even into Spring Term and beyond, given how much of Port-au-Prince is going to need to be rebuilt.”

Henthorne said it makes sense to provide an opportunity for OSU community members to help out those in Haiti in an immediate and tangible way.

“We have plenty of evidence that people at OSU want to make a difference for those who live with far fewer resources than we have enjoyed. When disasters strike, the OSU community generally responds,” he said. “This catastrophic earthquake will be a marker in time, perhaps the single greatest loss of life in an earthquake in modern time. I believe that the campus community will want to look back on it and recall that they did something to help.”

Oregon State University will hold a rededication ceremony this Friday for its historic Memorial Union building, constructed more than 80 years ago to honor students from the school who fought in World War I.

The rededication ceremony, which honors all students, faculty and staff who have served their country, takes place at on Friday, Nov. 13, at 4 p.m. in the MU Concourse. It is hosted by the Memorial Union and the ASOSU Veteran Affairs offices.

Michael Henthorne, director of the Memorial Union, said it is appropriate that one of OSU’s most beautiful and iconic buildings was developed to commemorate the sacrifices of life during World War I.

“Knowing the background of the MU helps students understand that society places its hopes and dreams for a better future in the hands of those who are pursuing higher education,” Henthorne said. “When that hope is cut short by sacrificing your life for your country, we should always remember and show our appreciation for that sacrifice…for that promise left unfulfilled.”

Students Warren Daigh and Tony Schille – at what was then called Oregon Agricultural College – came up with the original idea of creating a student center that would double as a memorial for fallen soldiers connected with the institution. The men were veterans of the World War I, and their idea gained support from the student body in 1920.

Fundraising began at that time and continued through the 1920s. Actual construction didn’t begin until 1927, and the building was completed in fall 1928, although donations for building construction continued rolling in for the next several decades. It was the first student union in the state.

World War I did not, as some had hoped, end all wars, and the Memorial Union’s purpose expanded as OSU servicemen and women fought in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War. Today, former and current OSU students continue to be involved in active combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, making it apt that students be reminded that the MU is more than just a student center, Henthorne said.

Katherine Canja, a member of the ASOSU Veteran’s Affairs Task Force, said she feels that the MU is a sacred space that honors sacrifice, but is also a focal point for countless clubs and organizations.

“It is a place that joins all of us….just as we see when we walk past the flags of the world,” she said.

For Canja, the rededication of the MU brings new attention, and new focus, to the student union.

“The MU may have been dedicated to service members from certain wars, but as of this Friday, the MU will be rededicated to encompass all service members who have, are or will be serving and for those who have sacrificed their life,” she said. “The MU will be a memorial for them, not any war. It is to remember the people who have done so much for our country, regardless or in the absence of any war.”

“I would imagine that there are great differences in attitudes about war and military service today than in the period after World War I,” Henthorne said. “The sense of pride and jubilation that was present in the country after “the war to end all wars” had been fought could not possibly be compared to the wars and conflicts of the current generation.

“Despite all that, the proposal to rededicate the MU came from the ASOSU Veteran’s Affairs Task Force and our all-student board of directors responded by approving the request to rededicate the MU,” he added. “I think that says something about where students today are on the issue of acknowledging service and sacrifice.”

Henthorne said he’d like students who visit the war memorial to consider what it really means to be of service to your country.

“Options are not limited to military service. There are many other ways to serve your country, but military service is a major way in which people serve their country and it is the type of service that often asks for the greatest levels of sacrifice and accounts for the largest loss of life,” he said. “We owe a huge debt of gratitude to those who’ve chosen this type of service to their country, as well as to others who served in other programs.”

In addition to the rededication ceremony, OSU will be hosting a Veterans Day Ceremony Friday, Nov. 13, from 11 a.m. to noon, which will be held in the Memorial Union Quad.

The ceremony, sponsored by OSU’s ROTC Units and the ASOSU Veteran Affairs Committee, will include a keynote address by retired Army Technical Sgt. Don Malarkey of the 101st Airborne ‘Easy’ Company. Also featured at the ceremony will be a POW/MIA name reading, a 12-hour POW/MIA flag walk, a 24-hour POW/MIA vigil, and an F-15 Strike Eagle fly-over by the Klamath Falls National Guard.

OSU junior Teressa Hartley was the project manager for a redesign of a conference room in the Memorial Union. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

Bright colors and bold patterns surround Oregon State University student Teressa Hartley as she stands in the Pan-Afrikan Sankofa Conference Room in the Memorial Union. But what draws her attention is a print by Portland artist Isaka Shamsud-Din, depicting African American residents fleeing their homes in the former housing development of Vanport, in Portland.

Hartley, a junior in interior design, knows the story of Vanport well. Her grandparents, like many other Vanport residents, were forced to flee their home with only a suitcase between them after a dike holding back the Columbia River burst, flooding the makeshift town.

Honoring the rich history of the African American experience is an important part of the redesign of the Memorial Union conference room, and Hartley is establishing her own place in history as the first student to be hired as a project manager for the redecoration of an MU room.

During her sophomore year, while Hartley was working at the Black Cultural Center on campus, she and other BCC members were asked by a group of senior design students to provide input on the re-decoration of a conference room in the MU. The students, under the direction of Associate Professor Carol Caughey, were tasked with creating an African American theme for the room, and asked the BCC students about their childhood homes and their perceptions of African American style, using that information to create suggested interior designs. Eventually, the designers were asked to reflect a broader African theme, to be inclusive of all people of African heritage.

Hartley joined a committee of students and staff to choose from eight different designs created by the students, and was pleased by the choice of bold colors and patterns that were finally selected.

So when Hartley heard that she could apply for a Promise Internship during Summer 2009 to manage the actual redesign of the room, she immediately applied, and was hired as project manager. The opportunity not only allowed her to participate in a room that honors her own heritage, but it falls in line with her dream of being a commercial designer.

“It’s more complex and interesting,” to design a public space, she said, so that rather than redoing someone’s bedroom, you’re making over an entire office or building. “You have the abilty to affect people’s lives with something larger.”

Supporting the MU mission

Kent Sumner in the Memorial Union said the project manager position was opened up to student interns to support the MU’s mission to include student designers and workers in its projects, and also ended up saving money. He said this project was so successful that they will likely continue using intern project managers.

As project manager, Hartley had to oversee the final designs of the room, which eventually included extending the redecoration to an adjoining room. She kept workers on a timeline, helped manage a budget, and did everything from making sure the paint colors worked well to making decisions on the height of a door when they added a closet into the space.

The best advice she received during her work was from her supervisor, Sid Cooper, who told her to “Own the ground you stand on.” She said the project helped her learn to trust herself and her decision-making abilities. She also said the project was truly a team effort, and she was thankful for the support she received.

Sustainability

Sustainability was as important in the room as keeping an African feel, not only for budget reasons but to honor OSU’s mission to be environmentally conscious. A majority of the artwork was pulled from pieces hidden in MU storage, and simply reframed. When a decision was made to create a doorway between the two rooms, discarded doors were refinished and reused in the space. The chairs were reupholstered with new fabric, and the carpeting contains recycled materials, and is laid in tiles, so if one portion is damaged it can easily be replaced with little waste.

A mural made up of quotes from prominent African and African American thinkers adorns the back wall of the conference room. Hartley and Earlene Wilson-Huey of the Ujima Education Office chose the quotes, which were then put into a design by a graphic arts student, and painted by Corvallis artist Dale Draeger.

The word Sankofa in the conference room’s new title refers to the West African symbol of a bird, reaching over his shoulder to grab an egg. Hartley said that image is deeply meaningful to the intent of the room.

“It’s about us reaching into the past and grabbing what is valuable, and using it to move us forward.”

The room will be dedicated during a ceremony at 5 p.m. Oct. 13 in the Memorial Union main lounge.

~ Theresa Hogue

]]>http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/lifeatosu/2009/reaching-into-the-past-to-move-us-forward/feed/1Research associate presents Georgian flag to Memorial Unionhttp://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/lifeatosu/2009/research-associate-presents-georgian-flag-to-memorial-union/
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/lifeatosu/2009/research-associate-presents-georgian-flag-to-memorial-union/#commentsThu, 30 Apr 2009 08:10:06 +0000http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/lifeatosu/?p=2016When Lia Danelishvili moved with her family to Corvallis in 2002 to take a job with the OSU College of Veterinary Medicine, she was sad to leave her native country of Georgia behind. But it was her two daughters that had the hardest time adjusting. Her youngest became full of patriotism when she moved to the United States.

Senior research associate with the College of Veterinary Medicine Lia Danelishvili presented a flag to the Memorial Union of her home country of Georgia, seen being folded by MU President Raphiel Carter and MU Building Manager Mike Mayers. (photo: Theresa Hogue)

“When I brought them here it was very hard,” she said. “Salome missed her relatives. She said she loved her country and she was a Georgian, so she should go back to Georgia.”

But the girls adjusted, made friends, began doing well in school, and slowly became Oregonians. However, Danelishvili, a senior research associate with the Department of biomedical sciences, wanted to make sure that her children maintained their ties with their Georgian relatives. So in July 2008, she and her daughters flew to Georgia to visit with grandparents, cousins and various aunts and uncles.

“For the first two weeks, it was perfect,” she said.

But when a conflict broke out in early August between Russia and Georgia, suddenly the family visit reverberated with the sound of bombs being dropped nearby. Danelishvili’s focus became getting her family home safely.

The girls were so focused on playing with their cousins that they didn’t notice what was happening nearby, and Danelishvili made sure that they associated happy family times, not international conflict, with their home country.

Despite the politics involved, Danelishvili said as a people, Georgians and Russians consider each other friends. The two countries were closely tied under the former Soviet Union, and even after the fall of the USSR, Danelishvili maintained friendships with Russians.
In Corvallis, she and her family often picnic with Russian immigrants living in the area, and spend time together during Orthodox holidays.

“We are friends. We love each other. We understand each other,” she said.

Unfortunately, many of Danelishvili’s American counterparts only know Georgia as a country because the recent conflict made news over here. For the rest, the mention of Georgia conjures up the American state of Georgia, a place Danelishvili has never been.

Hoping to set aside some of those misconceptions, Danelishvili asked her visiting parents to bring her a flag from Georgia, which she presented to the Memorial Union President Raphiel Carter last week. The red and white flag will be placed among the other flags hanging down the main corridor of the MU. The flags represent the home countries of many OSU students, staff and faculty.

When the flag is hung, she will take her daughters to the MU to see it take its place among the rest.

As frightening as her last trip to Georgia was, Danelishvili will return with her daughters for a visit in the future. But not for awhile.

“Things are still messy there,” she said. “To damage takes a few seconds, to rebuild takes decades.”